The One Who Survived
by Beast of the Sea
Summary: Neither could live while the other survived.


The One Who Survived

**Summary**: Neither could live while the other survived.  
**Date written**: September 16, 2007 (crossposted from LiveJournal)  
**Genre**: General/Drama  
**Word Count**: 1,197  
**Disclaimer: **J.K. Rowling owns the Harry Potter series and all related characters, settings, and plots.

* * *

-ALL IS WELL-

Harry snorted as he read the headline. Kingsley was Minister, Voldemort was dead, Ginny was going steady with him, Ron and Hermione were, finally, a couple... All should have been well.

But he wasn't treated as he should have been. He was the Savior of the Wizarding World, Bane of Voldemort, and so on, but they didn't _listen_ to him. _He_ had destroyed the Horcruxes, _he_ had defeated Voldemort thrice as the Dark Lord, once as Tom Riddle, _he_ had endured his mentor and godfather and countless others dying For the Greater Good... and yet, when he suggested improvements, they still treated him like a _child_. _Yes, Mr. Potter_, they said, but did nothing. And they put him under _watch _when he suggested that they should hand everything over to him! He was The Boy Who Lived, the Man Who Defeated The Dark Lord! He knew best!

The injustice made hatred flare in his heart as he huddled under his Invisibility Cloak. Dumbledore had called him a man in a million, a "wonderful, selfless boy". He was indeed selfless - had he not sacrificed himself for all of Hogwarts, even the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs? Every family with a child in Hogwarts should have loved him. And yet - and yet they did not understand that he was _different_, that he was _better_, that he was a _Gryffindor_. He was _perfect _to become Minister of Magic. After all, fate had pushed fame and glory upon him - it would be a waste not to use it!

He had two out of three Hallows. It would be not so hard to find the Stone, would it? Surely, if he used the Elder Wand and cried, "_Accio Resurrection Stone!_", it would come to him? Not that he would abuse the Hallows, of course. How could he? He was a man worthy of uniting the Hallows and defeating death. Yes, he was. He knew it.

The Wizarding World could, _should_, - would? - bow to him. He was Harry Potter. Whenever he defied authority, it was proven wrong. Even Unforgivables were not unforgivable when he used them - had McGonagall not said that his use of the Cruciatus Curse was "gallant"? Not that he would use them... save For the Greater Good... Had Dumbledore had the right idea as a young man? Perhaps... Grindelwald and Dumbledore simply had not been _worthy_ to apply it... he was Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived, Man-Who-Defeated-The-Dark-Lord... it would be his _right_ not only to _act_ For the Greater Good, but to _determine _what was the Greater Good...

And deep within Harry, the last Horcrux of Tom Marvolo Riddle smiled.

For, when the boy known as Harry Potter, halfway between the Harry Potter that could have been and Tom Riddle, 'died' from the Killing Curse of the Dark Lord, the Horcrux had come to the surface, for neither could live while the other survived. And, as the soul of the Harry Potter that could have been lay on the floor, a small, flayed, pitiful thing only half-saved by the lingering protection of Lily Evans's blood, Tom Riddle took the form of the only man he ever feared and walked up to the boy known as Harry Potter, the boy who had only two partial souls instead of one whole one. And, as he had predicted with his cunning, passed down the line all the way from the great Salazar himself, the boy known as Harry Potter turned away from his whimpering true soul and listened to the gilded words of Tom Riddle.

Ginny Weasley had once made the same mistake. But the piece of Tom Riddle sealed within the lightning-bolt scar was older and wiser than the piece sealed within the diary, and he knew better than to throw away his host to give himself solid form again. It was so much easier to slip in amongst his enemies under a cloak of another's identity - rather like an Invisiblity Cloak. For there were precious few Legilimens left in this world, and Tom Riddle was also an excellent Occlumens.

Eventually, the boy known as Harry Potter no longer heard the whimpering of the flayed thing on the floor, and Tom Riddle knew the boy's soul was his. So easy... all he had to do was praise Harry's goodness and insult Dumbledore, and the boy was more than happy to assure him that he was goodness incarnate. As a final mockery, he had told Harry that it was all in his head, but still real... the boy should have realized... Dumbledore was dead, and the dead could not enter minds... there was only one person who lived in Harry's soul, and Harry knew the identity of that person. Yet the boy was as stupid as any Gryffindor, and Tom controlled him with ease.

He had stopped Harry from entering the fight, instead watching on in safety... so very un-Gryffindorish, hiding beneath a cloak while others fought, yet Harry suspected _nothing_. He had not even had to quash a shadow of doubt - the boy's mind was his, of course, as the boy had forsaken his true soul, but Tom was disappointed by the lack of resistance. The corruption of a mind, particularly that one of a 'hero', should have been a challenge, one that would amuse him even as he sculpted his victim's mind into whatever he desired. Admittedly, he knew Harry's resistance to Imperius had solely been his work, his shouting from within Harry's mind overwhelming the alien voice from without, but he would have expected Harry to have _some _willpower. In retrospect, all the talk of being 'Dumbledore's man' should have made it obvious how obedient Harry truly was to a master who knew how to flatter, to gain loyalty.

And when the battle against "Lord Voldemort" came, Tom gambled everything on what little he knew of wandlore, namely what Ollivander had told him all those years ago - _The wand chooses the wizard_. For the Elder Wand's master truly was Lord Voldemort, as he had thought. But, even as Harry prattled on and Tom fought the urge to laugh - for his other self _was_ right and wrong... Harry _had _survived by accident many times, others through Tom's prodding. Mostly by accident -, Tom knew something that his other self didn't. There were two Lord Voldemorts standing there, and one had salvaged more of a soul by leeching off of Harry Potter than the other. So, the Elder Wand had a choice... and, as Tom had hoped, it chose the master with more of a soul. And one Lord Voldemort crumpled to the ground, and another relaxed within the "Boy-Who-Lived"'s soul.

Harry became more and more corrupt every day... his rage at the world, his delusions of grandeur, all of it grew stronger every day. And the boy who truly deserved to rule the world, the boy who truly was better than any other, the last fragment of the greatest Dark Lord to ever live, bided his time... and smiled.

The prophecy had been fulfilled.  
_  
Neither can live while the other survives_.

That time had come, and Tom was the one to survive.

* * *

**Author's Note**: As clarification, there were three "minds" in Harry's soul. His true one, the one that showed itself to the world - a hybrid between his true one and TMR -, and the Seventh Horcrux. When Voldemort Avada Kedavra'ed him, the Horcrux took the form of Dumbledore and tricked Harry into abandoning his true soul, thus leaving only the hybrid and the Horcrux. The Horcrux is corrupting the hybrid, and eventually will take over the body entirely.


End file.
